A Message from the Sharon Select Board

September 29, 2020
Dear Members of the Sharon Community: 
 
As elected officials sitting on the Select Board, we work throughout our community on a variety of topics, including working in partnership with the School Committee and other town boards and committees. Over the past two weeks, we have received nearly 30 emails and pieces of correspondence about recent events relating to the non-renewal of Superintendent Greer and the content and tenor of discussions at the School Committee table. We have also each followed many of the discussions on these topics on our community social media pages.
 
As a board we want to reassure members of the community that we hear you.  We also want to note that this is not the first time that concerns have been raised about equity and inclusion in our community, which was the impetus for our recently launched Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Committee to advise the Select Board about how we might address these issues across all of our town boards and committees.  We want to be clear that we will not stand for racism in our community, and that we recognize our role and responsibility to work to eradicate it.  We look forward to working with the DEI Committee in the coming weeks and months to do just that.
 
The three of us are also members of this community, living here and we are cognizant that words matter, and certain kinds of behaviors should not be tolerated on any board, or in the community. We cannot mandate what individuals say in their day to day lives or on social media.  But as a community, we need to be better; we must make an effort to work together collaboratively more, listen to one another, and look to move the town forward, so that future generations will want to also live and lead here. 
 
Sharon Select Board
September 29, 2020